NATO should move to support and integrate, not replicate, Ukraine’s drone ecosystem, a new LSE IDEAS report recommends.
Ukraine’s innovative, agile, and fast-paced drone pipelines are the result of collective action by civilians, soldiers and the government, and NATO cannot afford to learn their lessons twice, write the researchers.
Oliver Gill, Programme Manager at LSE IDEAS, and co-authors Jon-Wyatt Matlack, University of Regensburg, and independent researcher Sebastian Schwartz conducted interviews on site in Ukraine during the third quarter of 2024.
Interviewees spanned Ukraine’s drone architecture, from military personnel to civilian volunteers, members of the business community, and political establishment. Names were anonymised in the report.
They find Ukraine’s rapid approach to drone innovation and production en masse is facilitated by strong civil-military cooperation. For instance, carrying DevOps practices from the tech sector to accelerate iterative cycles of drone development or, as one interviewee described it, “Bringing the start-up spirit into the military”.
The realities of war reward decentralisation, resulting in wide, human-centric networks that encourage innovation. Normal soldiers can adjust FPV drone schematics in real time as per their battlefield needs, resulting in highly iterative drone production due to fast feedback loops.
“With Europe’s security architecture in flux, defence capabilities are needed now. As of quarter one in 2025, few of Europe’s leading military powers have wartime levels of ammunition storage and production.
“Drones are relatively quick and cheap to produce in large quantities compared to acquiring more artillery shells,” says Matlack, formerly a Visiting Research Fellow at LSE IDEAS.
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